The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States (Artist: Gardener Cox)

Biography

John Marshall Harlan is the namesake and grandson of the first Justice John Marshall Harlan. He was born in Chicago, the son of a prominent attorney who twice ran unsuccessfully for mayor. Harlan was educated at Princeton and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where he read law. He took an American law degree at New York Law School in 1925.

Harlan spent most of his early professional life in private practice with a distinguished Wall Street firm. There were occasional stints in government service, most notably as chief counsel for the New York State Crime Commission during the administration of Governor Thomas Dewey.

President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Harlan to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but he served there only ten months. Eisenhower promoted him to the High Court.

Harlan was the intellectual leader of the conservatives on the Court, frequently dissenting from the liberal activist decisions of the Warren Court. He defended federalism against centralization of power and he never accepted the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment somehow incorporated or embraced the Bill of Rights.

Harlan was widely respected, even by his opponents, for his thoroughness, candor, and civility. Though he frequently disagreed publicly with Justice Hugo Black, they were close friends off the bench.